When will my guild be able to raid Throne of Thunder?

I am the raidleader for my guild, we have raided for 3 weeks now, we have killed 4/6 in MsV (we only raid like 3 hours on Saturdays), and this Saturday I hope that people don't slack so we can kill Elegon and Will of the Emperor.

Anyways me and the 3 other officers and a few other players have ilvls over 485, which item level do our 10 man raidgroup need in average to at least be able to beat the first boss? Maybe it's a stupid question or too early to say.

Each group is different, as it depends a lot on player skill. But I would say an average across your whole raid team of 490 or higher should be sufficient for normal.

All this complaining is simply further proof that Blizzard could send each and every player a real-life wish-granting flying unicorn carrying a solid gold plate of chocolate chip cookies wrapped in hundred dollar bills, and someone would whine that Blizzard sucks for not letting them choose oatmeal raisin.

Originally Posted by DeadmanWalking

If your guild demands you slip into an elephants butt and force yourself out in a regurgation then you can't blame Blizzard for supplying the elephant.

When they tested the encounters in 10 man normal mode, they set everyone's gear level to 502 for the first 6 bosses, I believe? And it was 510 or 515 for the later ones. That would seem to me to suggest that's Blizzard's goal for the ideal item level for average-skilled raid groups to beat those encounters.

We won't really know what item level you need until we see the results of their final tuning pass. And I'm not sure that they plan to let people test any of those bosses again any time soon.

So your guess is as good as anyone's. From what I saw, the first three encounters were pretty simple and will probably be gear and basic coordination checks, the skill checks come later in the raid. 485 feels a little low unless you're world-class good. The good news is that you'll be able to up your item level pretty painlessly with item level 522 valor gear once the patch drops.

Our raid is in the same boat - average ilevel in the 480s. We're planning on continuing in MSV and HoF until 5.2 drops and then doing 5.2 LFR. We're shooting for an ilevel in the 495 range and then we'll see how ToT feels on normal.

Realistically we'll probably continue to run HoF at least for a few weeks as we get ilevels up. Obviously the VP items will help with this - get your raid to have 2500+ VP going into 5.2 so you can buy the neck and ring as soon as you have the rep for them... that's 2 522 pieces.

You should also be doing HoF and terrace LFR for gear if you have people who've got slots with 476 or 463 gear, esp since they're valor, quick and can drop sha-touched weapons.

It's too early to say exactly how the first bosses in ToT will be tuned, but a good estimate would be somewhere between 490-495, which is a bit ahead of where you guys stand atm, especially since I'm assuming you probably have a good number of players new to raiding. I wouldn't jump into ToT normal right away, I think you'd be wasting your raid time for something that is just going to frustrate you. Get your guys into the new LFR gear, 502 stuff will be plenty to get you going along with whatever you get from the new VP vendors. For at least a couple weeks after 5.2 I would say stay in t14, get some more boss kills there and get to know each other better as a team, even if the gear gets replaced quickly doing that will be better than smashing your head against a wall you aren't ready to knock down.

You can always spend one night in there. You won't know how doable it is for your group without getting some attempts in. Best case scenario, you can down it and get 522 gear. Worst case, you learn that you're not there yet and walk away already familiar with the fight.

You might want to skip Elegon and Will and go into HoF and down the first 2 bosses there (they're easier than Elegon), grab the loot from those, and then go revisit Elegon (phase 3 healing required is a sudden jump, that the healers need to be ready for - a few upgrades from HoF may help).

Back to the question... I think you may be a few weeks out. Have your group stack their VPs between now and launch. Once it hits, spend them on the 5.2 VP gear available, filling in with 5.1 VP gear if you still need more ilevel to hit 480 (unlikely by then). It is probably tuned for a team to be decked out with Sha Touched weapons (quite significant stat increase compared to their actual iLevel). Obviously run the ToT LFRs with as much of the raid team as possible when they open later.

Go in by all means on the first night, but don't expect any of the bosses to roll over for you - don't spend the whole night wiping there - you'd be better off trying MSV1-4/HoF1-2 and trying out ToES1. In my experience MSV5, HoF3, and ToES2 have been tough speedbumps to get over.

anyways, from PTR testing the 5.2 raid looks to be balanced around 495-505 ilvl on normal, getting higher as you go further. Heroic goes from 510 ish to 525 ish.
That said MSV was tuned for 502 at heroic but world first guilds killed it with like 470-480, the better setup/players and "luck" you have with early drops is gonna matter more than gear.